


Cuts and Bruises

by The_Friendly_Anon



Category: jacksepticeye
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Body death, Depression, Mind Control, Other, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-18 07:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Friendly_Anon/pseuds/The_Friendly_Anon
Summary: Chase, struggling with his alcoholism and depression, tries to find a new way to get rid of the pain. Little does he know that this minor change will cause the downfall of the Septic Egos.





	1. Red, Bandages, and Pills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [All My Friends Who Loved And Supported Me and The Story](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=All+My+Friends+Who+Loved+And+Supported+Me+and+The+Story).



Chase trudged back into his rental apartment and flopped down onto a barstool along his kitchen, rubbing his eyes. His filming day for his next trick shot video didn’t go as planned, and by the time he went to go edit it he could already tell it was trash.

Why was his stuff already becoming so pathetic? His first video was a success: the fans loved his work! It shouldn’t be too hard to make something new, everyone already loved him for his personality alone.

But now everything just didn’t seem right. Nothing was better, he wasn’t getting better, anything wasn’t getting better. He wasn’t getting any income to keep his rental afloat, Stacy was getting stricter on letting him see the kids, and his work was getting more terrible by the minute.

Depressed enough with himself by this point, he got off the stool and made his way to his fridge. He swung it open with a lot of force and found himself face to face with a lot of beer bottles, a good majority unopened. He quickly grabbed two with one hand, grabbing by the throat of the bottles, and swung himself back over to the bar as the fridge closed.

As he sat down he quickly opened up the one and starting chugging it down, not going to savor the bitterness of the alcoholic drink. He just needed to drink the pain away, that’s all he needed to do. First he found himself completing the first bottle, then shortly the next. Then three more. Then five more. He laughed at his tipsy state. A couple more. He found himself giggling like a crazy person. Was he going crazy? No, right? But he could still feel that pain in the back of his head. More booze wasn’t going to stop this.

Slowly and clumsily he walked over to a drawer and pulled it open. There he found a collection of silverware he used, but after a couple a seconds he found it. He giggled and pulled out a larger knife, and trudged himself to the bathroom.

He stood overtop his modern-looking sink, a drunken and crazed smile on his face, a glazed look in his eyes, hunched over looking at the knife in his right fist. He then looked up into the mirror plastered onto the wall, and slowly lifting his fist up he let the cuts well over his left arm. First one, then two. Then two more. Then four more. He lost count. Blood dripped into the sink, onto the floor. Then the other arm. Over, and over, and over again. He stared at his work and laughed, the pain dying. He looked back up to himself in the mirror and swore his eyes turned green. Just drunken hallucinations he told himself. He swung his arms around, satisfied, and heard a bottle hit the floor. He turned back around and just saw it was his depression pills, to which he just shrugged. On the floor now, useless, spilled all over just like his thoughts. With a high pitched giggle, he walked out.

He then found himself collapsing onto his bed, his open cuts undressed.

~~~

Chase woke up to the sound of an alarm clock blaring very rudely in his ear. Did people still use alarm clocks anymore? He shook the thought away and sat up right, and the first sight he saw was his arms. He cursed silently, wondering why he did this to himself. Then he did the same, wincing at his hangover causing his headache.

Slowly rising out of bed, he picked up his signature cap that had fallen onto the floor and made his way to his closet. He quickly changed his shirt into a black graphic design shirt with small stars, and then staring at his arms he decided to throw on a hoodie as well. It was a royal blue J!NX Game Over zip hoodie, the same company that his hat came from. The company gave it to him after his video came out, thanking him for the promotion of their clothing line. He disposed of his original very dark gray shirt into a corner, and quickly changed his black-ripped pants into another fresh set from his drawer, except this one had some slight bleach marks due to a laundry incident. 

Happy with his hidden up look, he decided to finally dress up the wounds on his arms. He made his way to the bathroom and rolled his sleeves up, then found some rolled up bandages and went to work. With quick pace, he was finished and quickly rolled the sleeves back down. He then heard his doorbell ring.

“Coming!” shouted Chase, and quickly dashed for the door before passing the bar. He cursed silently and quickly grabbed all the bottles and stuffed them back into the fridge, and then opened the door. Standing there was the good doctor himself.

“Henrik!” Chase exclaimed, then winced as the light burned his eyes. “Oh geez, sorry. What are you doing here?”

Henrik cocked his head in confusion. “I’ve come to pick you up. Remember? Vee planned to hang out vit zee others today.” He straightens his lab coat and adjusts his turtleneck, something he started wearing after the incident with Anti. “I figured it might be best if you vere drinking last night.” He adds with a quick sniff. “Seems I vas right.”

“Oh, right, duh, sorry! Let’s get going then, right?” Chase says in a chipper tone.

Henrik nods and pats his friend’s back as they walk towards the good doctor’s car. “Yes, vee shall.” Once they’re in the car, Henrik mentions, “Nice hoodie by zee vay. It suits you vell.”

Chase nods in agreement and laughs a bit as the car takes off. “You think so? I might try wearing it in some future videos.” But on the inside he’s kicking himself over and over again, hiding his pain and scars like a coward. “By the way, I might need some more an-“ he cuts himself off. “Depression pills.” He decides to say instead, not trying to mention the cursed “A” word. “I can’t seem to find them anywhere.” He lies, not willing to admit he had spilled them all over the floor in a drunken haze.

Henrik makes a turn and briefly glances over at his friend in the passenger seat. “Really?” He tuts. Chase shrugs, to which the German sighs and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Very vell.” He smiles instead. “How are Stacy and zee kids?”

Chase sighs and lets his head hit the back of the seat. He sinks down and rubs his eyes again. “It’s alright, I guess. The kids seems to be doing fine. Grey is starting fourth grade soon which is exciting, and apparently he’s taken up basketball lessons. Sammy will soon be going into first, and all she talks about is apparently me.” Chase finds himself smiling. “Stacy isn’t proud of that obviously. She’s gotten stricter on letting me see them, I don’t know why.”

“Hmm.” Henrik thinks aloud as he pulls to a stop. “Zhat is very strange.” He then shrugs. “As long as zee kids are happy, I guess.” The light turns green and he starts again.

Chase nods. “Yeah, I guess so.” He then looks over to the doctor and sits back up. “How about you? How’s your wife and daughter?”

Henrik smiles, trying his best not to laugh, another side effect of his possession encounter. “Ahh, zhey are doing just fine. Maria is now dedicating her full time into looking after Sally, but zhat’s what she says. Turns out she ended up cutting herself on a rock when she was climbing some near our house.” Chase flinches at the word “cutting,” but he does his best to stifle it as just a quick shudder. “Scared the sheisse out of me. Had to patch her back up, thankfully it vasn’t deep.”

“Thankfully that was nothing serious!” Chase remarks with a fake smile. “It would be a shame if little Sal got terribly hurt.” Again Chase was kicking himself mentally. He had no right to say something like that when he was guilty of it. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of the hoodie and quietly huffs to himself. “So where are we going again?” Chase asks.

Henrik shakes his head and stops the car, parking it. “Is your hangover zhat bad?” He pulls out some Gatorade and some cereal bars. “As bad as it is, electrolytes help. Also sweets. Drink up quickly, ve’re going bowling.” He steps out of the car after handing him the items and slams it shut. Chase’s head rings, and he swears he can hear laughter outside the car. He self consciously itches at the bandages, then realizes what he’s doing and stops. Following Henrik’s advice he chomps down on the bars and swings down some of the sports drink. He stuffs whatever he doesn’t finish in the pockets of his hoodie and realizes the time: two o’clock. Had he slept that long?

~~~

“STRIKE AGAIN BABY!” Jackie announces with a fist pump, and the rest of the Egos groan, except Jamie, who just throws his head back and arms up in exaggeration. “Guess who’s gonna get that bet money after all!!!” He points towards the others as the pins behind him are automatically reset. He plops into the seat next to Marvin, wearing some ripped jeans and a red Spider-Man hoodie, his casual wear. Marvin ruffles the hero-in-disguise’s hair as he sits down, trying to shut him up.

“Alright alright we get it JB, sheesh.” Marvin retorts, and stands to go next. He takes a quick glance at the scoreboard, noticing they’re on the seventh round. Jackie had 67 points, Marvin with 53, Jamie with 46, Henrik with 59, and Chase with 51. Marvin picks up a shiny blue ball, and goes to wind up his arm. It was weird not seeing him with his cape and cat mask in public, just his regular blue dress shirt and black pants, but it’s not like they wanted to show off themselves today. Today they were just brothers, in a way, hanging out and having fun.

Chase was glad to be here with the others, as his mood was already lifted. He was drinking water to help his hangover even more, and found it was dulling really quickly. He just needed some more food in him. “I’ll be right back guys, gonna go grab some food.” Chase says, and with a tip of his hat stands up and goes to find a vending machine.

Thankfully he finds one really quickly, filled to the brim with candy and chips. He eyes a particularly big M&M’s bag, and decides that. “I need sugar after all, sweets help according to zee great doctah.” Chase says to himself, mocking the German’s accent at the last part. As he pays and watches the candy drop down, he sees a brief reflection of himself and yelps in fright. He sees himself, but his eyes flashed green and he smiled wickedly at an almost inhuman rate before going to normal, almost like a… His train of thought is interrupted when the bag of candy hits the bottom, and he snatches it up fast and walks away, spooked.

He sits down in his seat which was between the doctor and the mute man, but he looks up to see that Henrik is up, Marvin now up to 62 and Jamie up to 53. He opens up the M&M’s and pops a few into his mouth, then turns the bag to Jamie. “You want some JJ?” Chase asks politely. Jamie shakes his head, but tips his own hat in thanks. “Alrighty, whatever ya say mustache!” Chase teases, to which JJ mimes a laugh following with wiggling his mustache.

“FICK!” Henrik swears as he stomps the ground with a huff. Everyone looks up to the board to see he rolled a gutter, which makes Marvin chuckle. Henrik’s score, 61. “Zis game is RIGGED!” He shouts as he drops down into his seat. He fiddles with his turtleneck and pats Chase’s arm. “Your turn Brody.”

“Oh you shush I’m in last Schneep!” Chase laughs at Henrik’s huffiness. He picks up the bowling ball, a really shiny green one, and pauses when he looks at it. He can see his reflection again, and what he sees makes his blood go cold.

It’s him again, but his eyes are pitch black, red tears flowing down his cheeks, blood. He’s grinning with an unnatural happiness, his teeth sharp and unusually white. His reflection points at him, then with the same finger drags it along his neck, opening the signature cut.

Chase finally comes to his senses and screams, dropping the ball onto the ground. His feet quickly dodge it and it drops straight into the wooden paneling, making a noticeable dent. The others rush to him, worried.

“Chase?”

“Vhat’s vrong?!”

“Come on buddy, speak to us!”

Jamie quickly signs, asking if he’s okay.

All of his friends’ voices swirl in his head, and he feels his body start to shake. He grips his hand above his heart and starts to breathe heavily. He can’t take it: they’re too close, voices are too loud, everyone is watching. Eyes. Watching. All. Are. Watching.

Henrik grabs Chase’s shoulders and shakes him, and when their eyes meet Chase can swear the room is swirling. “Henrik, I need to leave.” Is all Chase can say, before his body starts to shake even more violently. He wants to expose his cuts and itch them open, they’re burning so badly. Eyes are staring into his soul. The floor is sinking him in, he can’t think, he can’t move, he can’t breathe.

Henrik quickly nods and grabs his hand and drags him back to his car with a quick wave of goodbyes to the others and sorry’s. They both get in and with a quick start up they drive off back to Chase’s apartment. Chase’s panic attack is already starting to calm down. He’s decided to not look at any of the other mirrors or possible reflectors and focus on his breathing. He’s still shaking and his arms feel like they’re on fire. However, Henrik doesn’t seem mad at all, and with a quick press of a button he plays some relaxing music. “Made zhis after mein incident.” Chase let’s the sounds fill his ears and sinks down, trying to relax. He closes his eyes for the rest of the trip and once they’re back, Henrik lightly taps his shoulder. Chase quickly gets out of the car before quickly hugging his friend and thanking him.

His hand fiddles with the door knob but once he’s inside he locks the door and runs back into the bathroom. He takes off his hoodie and looks back at the mirror, and his image keeps flickering between himself and “himself.”

“What’s wrong with me?!” Chase screams, and then his body shudders and lets out a high pitched giggle. His voice doesn’t come out the same.

“Isn’t it obvious, our f̶av̵͏̶o҉̨r͘i͘͡t̷̕͢e̸̛ ̵b̵̛ó͢y̛̕?! You led yourself to your own D̢́E̸̴̢̢̨M͘͜͏I̵̴͟͢͞Ş͝͡E̴̡.” His voice is filled with static and changes in pitch. His arms rise up, and his eyes see the bandages.

“Such a shame I can’t play the d̨҉ép̴͝r̶͝͝e̸s͡séd̶̡ any longer… But you’ve given my position away, and that needs to be F͏Ì̕͢X̕͜͜͞͡E҉̶̨͡D̨̨́͢.”

Then Chase feels his body fully taken over, and Anti laughs as he takes full control. He rips the bandages off of his arms, and quickly grabs the knife that was left there the previous night, stained red with dried blood. He then goes hacking away, red draining from his skin. His body stumbles around, life draining. Everything, draining. He keeps laughing, and keeps cutting away at other locations at his skin. And to finish it off, he pulls off his signature sign, and slices it deep across his neck.

Chase’s body dies and falls to the ground, among the red, bandages, and pills.


	2. Shut-In

It had been several days since Chase had his accident. And usually Henrik didn’t mind, he knows Chase can be a bit of a shut in, but usually he hears from him during those times. However, this was different. He hadn’t heard from him at all. Worried, Henrik was standing outside his door.

“C-Chase?” Henrik called as he knocked on the door. “Buddy??? You in zhere?” After a couple of moments, and after hearing no voice from inside, he knocked again, this time with much more force, even testing the knob to see it was locked. “Brody!!! Come on! Zhis isn’t funny!!!” His voice grew with worry and he didn’t know exactly what to do. Usually he would at least shout saying he didn’t want to see anyone or anything along those lines. Growing anxious, Henrik tapped his foot and pulled out his phone and dialed for Jackie. His phone rang a bit before the superhero picked up.

“Hey Schneep, what’s up?” Jackie said through the phone. He seemed chipper at least.

“Hey Jackie, nothing much. Actually, zhat’s a lie. It’s Chase. I’m at his house.” Henrik muttered, fidgeting with his turtleneck.

“Um, so what’s wrong? He hasn’t come out yet, doesn’t he usually do that?” Jackie questioned.

“ZHAT’S NOT IT!” Henrik screamed, then exhaled and pinched his nose. “Sorry, you know how much he means to me. I’ve knocked on his door multiple zimes, and he’s not come to zhe door or said anything. I’m very vorried.” There was silence before Jackie said something again.

“Huh. That is odd. He usually gives a sign, right?” He asks.

Henrik nods to himself. “Yes. Can you at least come over? I don’t know, maybe do something superhero like? Investigate?”

Jackie grins. “Of course! Lemme get the others. They might wanna help too!”

Henrik smiles and sits down on a step. “Alright. See ya soon.” And with that, Henrik sighs and pushes his glasses up on his nose. ‘Please get here quickly.’

~~~

Jackie marches up to Henrik in his hero suit and gear, Marvin wearing his mask and cape as well, and Jamie walking along behind. “Welp, we’re here! What do you need good doctor?”

Henrik nods and points to the door. “Maybe breaking zhat down zo start.”

Jackie laughs. “What do you think I am? A crazy person? Only those kind of people break down doors.” He then motions to Marvin. “Hey Marv, can you unlock the door?”

Marvin cracks his knuckles. “You ask this as if I’m not a magician.” He smirks and his hands glow a faint blue-green. He then walks up to the door and puts his hand on the knob. With his other, he snaps. “Hey, presto!” And with that, he opens the door and bows.

Jamie clapped excitedly for his magic buddy and then hopped inside. Jackie followed suit, and so does Henrik, and Marvin closes the door once everyone is inside. Jamie quickly signed, saying he had never been inside Chase’s apartment before.

“Me too JJ.” Marvin mutters as he looks along. No lights are on, and too lazy to flick on a switch that is probably right next to him, he summons up a green flame that lights up the room. Looking around, right in front of him is a little living room, right behind that a kitchen with a bar top area. Then near the right hand corner is a hallway that leads somewhere else in the apartment. “Huh, oddly modern looking considering his pay.” Jackie elbowed the magician to keep him quiet. “Hey am I wrong?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean you have to say it.” Jackie spits to the magician. He then heads over to the kitchen area and starts looking around. “You don’t think he’d mind, right?” Jackie asks as he looks at the others, then he opens the fridge door. He brings his hand to his mouth, and his eyes widen and are filled with an almost sad look. “So little food, yet so much beer.” Jackie mutters.

“Vhat?!” Henrik exclaims, and he walks over to the fridge and looks inside himself. He counts, his language shifting from English to German, and once he’s finished his face is a mixture of grief and anger. “20 empty bottles. Enough zo kill any of us, if drunk in zwo hours.”

Jamie brings his hand up to his face in concern, and looks to the others. Marvin’s flame flickers in and out briefly. “Do you think…” Marvin can only say, but his words trail off, not wanting to finish his sentence.

“I really hope not.” Is all Jackie can say before he heads off to look at the hallway. “Oh! It’s just a hallway to his bedroom! The door is strangely open…” Jackie then tears down to go looking into the room, with Marvin and JJ following. Henrik follows along too, but then stops when he sees another door, that’s open as well. As the others rush in and start investigating, Henrik looks in. He first sees the mirror, then then the red, the pills, the bandages, and then he screams as his eyes fall upon something else.

“CHASE!!!” Henrik sobs, and his knees drop to the floor. Tears flood his eyes, and suddenly his cheeks are lined with waterfalls. “V-Vhy…” He wants to continue to speak, but his throat feels clogged. Suddenly he’s panicking, and he’s ripping at his turtleneck. He can’t breathe, he can feel it. The cord, Anti at his neck, the laugh that came out of his throat. No, not again not again!

Breathe, just breathe! Yet his lungs are empty, his throat burning. He feels his turtleneck start to rip at the seams.

“Henrik!” Jackie shouts, waking up Henrik’s trance and he can suddenly breathe again. His head whips around to the hero who’s standing at the doorway, and their eyes meet.

“He’s…” Henrik can only mutter, before he can feel the waterfalls on his cheeks again. He quickly wipes them away.

“What do you…” Jackie trails off and lies his eyes on Chase. “Oh, oh no…”

“What’s going on?” Marvin asks, unable to look over Jackie. He pushes his way in and finally sees Brody. “Oh God…” Quickly Marvin looks away and ushers JJ to move. “Come on Jameson, you don’t want to see this.”

As Jamie is sat down back in the living room Marvin comes back over. He looks down at the room and examines it, a bit more numb to this stuff compared to Jackie and Henrik. One of the first things he notices is the pills. “Huh.” Marvin kneels down and picks up the vial. “Anti-depression pills.” Henrik eyes flash with a sudden adrenaline rush at the mention of the terrible glitch’s name, but Marvin continues. “Yadayadayada… Administered by Dr. Henrik von Schneeplestein.” The magician’s head whips around. “You gave him these Henrik???”

Henrik is still on the floor, and he glances up at the magician. “Yes, I did. I’m responsible for Chase’s medication. I am certified doctah after all. Chase just asked me zo be his.” Marvin quickly nods then looks over the vial again.

Jackie then looks over to Chase and kneels down next to him. His arms were clear of any cuts surprisingly. “This is bizarre, this doesn’t explain all the blood and bandages.” He then looks at his neck and his own blood goes cold. “Schneep… His neck…”

Henrik’s eyes widen and he starts to stutter. “N-N-No… No no no no no!!!” He quickly dashes over to Chase’s side and examines the wound. That’s it. The signature cut. Henrik’s body shakes as he faces his fear and takes a closer look. It looks… old. As if it were covered up, but just resurfaced.

“So we got… beer, pills, and blood loss. Any of those could’ve caused Chase’s death.” Marvin says, leaning against a wall. “Question is, what did?”

“You’re serious?!” Jackie shouts to Marvin. “You think he overdosed?! Do you see all the blood on the ground?!” He emphasizes this by waving his arms towards the floor.

“Yeah, but look at his arms! Nothing!! Where else could he have cut himself that could leak so much and spill onto the floor?! His clothes aren’t soaked with anything either!” Marvin brings the vial up and points to it. “So obviously, this!”

“You are out of your goddamned mind!” Jackie huffs. “Sure, maybe it wasn’t the blood, but he still could’ve cut himself!” Jackie then signals the cut across his neck.

“Oh please, Anti?!?! Last I knew he was still putting Jack in a coma! Get out of here!” Marvin screams. “I’m done with this bullshit! You refuse to believe me for anything unless if I’m helpful!” His eyes glow a bright blue with a surge of power. “You stupid wannabe hero!!!” He then storms out, and the others can hear a door slam shut.

“Jackie…” Henrik starts after staying quiet throughout the argument. “The cut, it’s old.” He mutters and stands up.

Jackie stares at Henrik. “Wait… Could Chase have really been-“ Henrik then glares at Jackie, and Jackie silenced himself.

“If you dare say, zhat zhe friend who’s been vith me since mein possession, is mein enemy, you can get the FICK OUT OF HERE!” Henrik shouts. Jackie doesn’t know what to say, what to do. Henrik, however, has the look of murder in his eyes.

“LEAVE! NOW! OR ELSE PETAH VILL BE GLAD ZO SEE YOU!”

Jackie immediately runs, pulling JJ who was still in the living room, leaving the apartment.

Henrik remains in the bathroom alone for some time, unable to move. He had just yelled at one of his brothers-in-a-way and even threatened to kill him. He sighs, and heads to the door. “I… need zo go…” And with that, Henrik leaves and closes the door behind him.

Chase’s body, then smiles.


	3. Useful

The old cut reopens on Chase’s neck, and suddenly he’s up on his feet. He grips the hat and puts it on his head, then turns to look in the mirror. There he sees a sad looking Chase.

“Why are you doing this?! I’m probably the worst Ego, no powers, no nothing!” Chase in the mirror screams.

Chase’s body shrugs, then laughs as it comes out as static, his eyes going black and crying blood. “Because Depressed, you’re going to pay for nearly giving me away…” He then goes serious and glares at Chase. “And remember our deal.” He puts his hand up against the glass, and the real Chase glitches away. Chase’s body, Anti, leaves and walks to the living room.

Anti cracks his neck and swings the front door open, revealing it is now night time. “Alright Depressed, which one of your little friends should we pay a little visit first…” He then taps his chin, and his eyes light up in a green glow and return to normal. “How about a little magician? He surely questioned my existence…”

Chase was screaming in Anti’s head, but he merely pushed him away. He was in control, and no one was gonna stop him. He grins, and suddenly the cuts that had previously disappeared reopen and drip to the ground. And with a quick glitch, Anti’s gone.

~~~

Marvin’s leaning over a table, with a bunch of magic books open. “Alright… Practiced non-flammable flames, even though that makes zero sense, what next…” Marvin mutters to himself before flipping through one of the books. His eyes flash blue as it lands on a page in curiosity, and then he’s smiling. “Oh, for sure this one!” It’s a page for teleportation, and suddenly he’s questioning why he didn’t learn this earlier. “No matter.” He says, and pulls his mask down after reading the instructions.

He takes the ears of his mask and starts rubbing them in circular motions. He starts making a weird humming noise, and then positions his left foot back farther. His eyes burn a bright blue and the marks on his mask glow, and suddenly a blue-green portal appears. His eyes widen and he smiles. “YES! I did it I did it I did it!!!” But as soon as his concentration drifted, the portal disappears. “UGH!” He groans loudly, and kicks a nearby table. He flops down onto a couch and throws his mask to the ground. “Why…” He sighs before he continues. “Maybe I am only believable when I’m useful, cause I surely don’t believe in myself…” He feels tears well his eyes before he feels something brush up against his legs. He looks down and sees his white cat, Tricks, rubbing his face against him. He simply meows, but Marvin can hear his real voice loud and clear.

“Are you okay Marvi? You seem upset.” He then leaps up and lies down on his lap, to which Marvin starts petting his back.

“I don’t know Tricks… I seem to be failing a lot…” He then looks over to the door. “And my fight with JB didn’t help at all. It’s all I can think about.”

Tricks chirps. “Don’t feel that way Marvi! You’re super amazing at magic! You were just able to make a glowy-spinny thing!”

Marvin chuckles. “A portal? Yeah, I guess. But as soon as I got excited it disappeared. I can’t even keep it open.”

Tricks cocks his head. “Well, at least you know what to do next time!” He then purrs and walks off. “I’m tired! Bye!”

Marvin laughs. “You just slept an hour ago you silly!” He then stands up and stretches. “Okay, let’s go again! He goes to pick up his mask, but suddenly he’s finding that it vanished. “Huh, that’s odd.” He looks back up, but then he sees Chase, and then the open wound, and the cuts on his arm all open again. “C-Chase?! H-How?!?!” He falls down onto the couch, and finds his heart rate increasing. “You’re DEAD!”

Chase then laughs, and suddenly blood is lining his cheeks again. “Not quite kitty!” His head then cracks to a position to make it 90 degrees with his body, and then he suddenly glitches over to Marvin and pins him down.

“ANTI?! But what about Jack?! His coma???” Marvin’s trying to wriggle out of place, but Anti has him pinned down thoroughly.

Anti shrugs. “Who says you need to keep watch over a man who’s dead asleep?” He grins and his eyes go black. The neck wound is starting to drip, and he’s thinks a bit before lifting one arm and summoning a knife. “Prepare to sleep kitty!”

As soon as those words leave Anti’s mouth, Marvin quickly pushes Anti off and bolts, trying to find his mask. Suddenly, he finds it lying on the table with the books. He doesn’t question it and quickly picks it up, summoning a blue-green flame with a quick glow of his eyes. “Step near me glitch! I DARE!” Even though he’s looking at the body of his friend, he knows that isn’t Chase, just a puppet.

Anti grins and glitches back over to him, holding the knife up to his neck that he had summoned. “Wrong choice Masked…” Just when he’s about to slice, Marvin shoots his hand forward, the one with the flame in it, and grabs Anti’s own neck, burning it. Anti screams, turning away and cursing while trying to extinguish the burn. As it vanishes, Anti turns back around, and his fully black eyes cry even more blood. His face contorts into anger, and suddenly his right eye glows green as a growl leaves his throat. “You’ll PAY!” Suddenly Anti leans his hand down onto the hem of Chase’s pants, and finds a loaded gun. He quickly draws it and aims right at Marvin’s head, then fires.

Marvin screams and quickly casts a spell to protect him, a little shield. As Anti continues to fire at Marvin, Marvin quickly runs around casting more protection shields. When the gun runs out, Marvin comes in quick with another attack, a spell to give him projected-claws. He strikes in from above, and gives Anti a huge slash across his eyes. Anti’s form quickly vaporizes, and suddenly he’s 10 feet away, trying to recover. “How’s that you stupid glitch?! You want more?!” Marvin teases, wiping at blood that had gotten on his cheek from the slash on Anti’s face. “I’ll stop you, right here and now if you want!”

Anti looks up, a huge four clawed scar going across both of his eyes, pitch black, empty. Suddenly, white slits surface from the darkness, and a laugh erupts. Chase’s hat glitches to a dark green overlay, and his arms start to bleed even more. “It takes more than that to stop me Cat…” His voice comes out broken, constantly shifting in pitch. It’s layered in static, and sounds like it’s drowning in liquid.

Marvin backs up and stares down at him, his eyes widening. “What… How?!” Marvin prepares a flame, but it quickly glitches out. “HUH?!” But then he touches his face, and finds his mask is not there. When he looks back to Anti, it’s in his hands.

“Need this?” Anti coos. With a simple smirk, he starts to bend it, about to snap it in half.

“NO, PLEASE!” Marvin shouts, reaching out for it. Anti smiles, and fully starts to bend it, cracking it. “I’ll do anything!!!” Marvin screams, and then covers his mouth.

Anti’s eyes glow a faint white in the dark around him. “Anything, huh?” He then stops, and when a quick drop of blood from his neck drops into the mask, Anti simply glitches back over and hands it to him. “Here, there we go.”

Marvin quickly grabs it and puts it back on without hesitation, needing his mask to do anything. But he soon regrets it, as his mask suddenly starts to heat up, and soon it’s forced on to his face. He tugs at it, but finds it won’t come off. “What’s going on-“ Marvin can’t finish his sentence as he goes into a shut-down like state and his head hangs.

Anti chuckles as from his point of view, the blood runs and makes a red border around the mask. Once it’s finished, he mutters a simple phrase. “Mask, it's time to wake up.”

Marvin lifts his head back up, and his eyes are pitch black, matching Anti’s. “Good Morning Bro Average…” Marvin sung in a light voice.

Anti cackled, proud of his work. “Alright Mask, let’s trash this place.”

~~~

Henrik yawned and rose out of his bed, and when he checked his phone to see no response from any of the others, he sighed. They must’ve hated him. Who wouldn’t though? He dragged them to Chase’s house, who turned out was dead, and caused all of them to get angry at each other. All of them, except… “JAMIE!” Henrik shouted to himself. “He vasn’t yelled at all!” He quickly pulled up his Messages app and quickly typed something out to JJ.

“Hey Jamie, you doing okay?”

A couple of minutes later, “Yes Henrik! I am feeling very dapper, haha! How are you old chap?”

Henrik smiled, glad his to see his timey personality shining through. “Good, I guess. However Jackie is very mad at me, I assume. I kind of threatened him yesterday.” 

“Oh no! So that’s what I heard.” A couple of seconds. “Actually, that makes me think of something. I sent Marvin a message last night about practicing magic, but he never responded. I am quite worried to be honest.”

“You want to go check him out? Maybe see what’s up?” Henrik proposed.

“Yes, that will make me feel better. Alright, see you there old chap!” As Jamie’s last message popped up, Henrik readied himself and popped into his car. Marvin’s house wasn’t all that far away, only a 5 minute drive. So when he got there, he was surprised to see Jamie there. As Henrik was about to ask, Jamie quickly signed, saying he had been practicing his teleportation.

“Ahhh, nice job!” Henrik acknowledged, and the dapper man replied with a thumbs up. “Now, let’s see what’s going on here.” Henrik walked up and knocked on the door, but no response. “Oh God not again. Marvin!!! You there?” Chase checked the door, and found it surprisingly unlocked. When the door swung open, Henrik nearly wanted to gag.

His first floor was a mess, tables and chairs and couches flipped over and ripped, shelves knocked over, books unspined and on the floor in tatters. And blood lines the walls, the floors, everything.

And in the middle was Marvin, clutching his cat Tricks, covered in blood, both of them dead.

And in front of them both, written in blood.

“AM I USEFUL NOW JACKIE?”


	4. Shattered

Henrik backed up from the scene, and retreated back through the door. “Jamie… You don’t want to see zhis…” But Jamie pushed through Henrik, quickly signing that he was done with being left out of things like this. If it had to do with one of his best friends, he was not going to be left out of this.

However, as soon as Jamie’s eyes met where Marvin and Tricks were on the ground, his shoulders rised up as far as they could, and then he collapsed to his knees. Henrik ran up to JJ and looked down at his friend, and saw he was silently sobbing, his shoulders shaking and moving for emphasis. Tears drowned his eyes, and despite it looking like his open mouth was letting out wails, no noise was coming out. The mute man couldn’t sound his guilt, his sound only surrounding his head, drowning his mind and thoughts.

“Jameson…” Henrik started, and then bent down and hugged him tight, but got no response. When he looked at his eyes, they were red from the sobbing, glossed over, frozen in time. He was still in the same position, knees down, arms dangling to his side. He was barely breathing, and Henrik started to get worried for his response. He waved his hands in front of Jamie, who didn’t even seemed to acknowledge the doctor. Henrik let out a rushed sigh and shook the mute man, and still gave no response. “Psychological shock most likely… Fick…” Henrik was not going to get him back himself. He thought of the only Septic Ego left alive, and he sighed and hit his head repeatedly with a light fist. He brought out his phone and quickly dialed the hero.

“Huh, I thought you wanted me dead.” Jackie responds after he picks up.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry Jackie… I didn’t mean it, I svear…” Henrik says after a sad sigh. “I vas rushed by emotions, and didn’t vant to zhink my friend vas zhe man who…” Henrik couldn’t stand it, guilt was tugging at his mind, and it was unbearable. “Please forgive me Jackie, I need you.”

There was a good amount of silence, nothing spoken. Henrik started to get worried that he had thoroughly ruin his relationship with the hero, but then he heard a light chuckle come from the other side of the phone and he smiled. “Alright Henrik, I believe you. I’ll accept your apology.”

Henrik laughs in return. “Zhank you Jackie.” Henrik then frowns, and looks back at Jamie. “Actually, Jackie, I know you and Marvin fought, but, um… Could you please come over to his place? It needs to be looked at.”

Jackie’s breath hitched. “What do you mean?”

Henrik swallowed nervously. “Just come over here.” He said quickly and hung up the phone before the hero could respond. All Henrik could hope is that Jackie wouldn’t react as badly as Jamie did.

~~~

Henrik waited and sat outside when Jackie finally ran up to the front of the house, in full costume once again. Henrik had closed the door so that way Jackie wouldn’t look inside immediately and so that they could talk. “What happened? You hung up immediately Schneep.”

Henrik sighed. “I couldn’t properly explain zhe situation vithout you here.”

Jackie crossed his arms. “What do you mean? You’re not making any sense.”

Henrik slowly rose and put his hand on the door knob. “Just… fully brace yourself Jackie…” Henrik said with a slow exhale. And he turned the knob and closed moved his head to look at Jackie. As soon as Jackie got a quick glance at the room, his eyes went huge and he brought a hand to his mouth.

“... N-No, this isn’t real…” Jackie denied, bringing his eyes to look at Henrik. “This… This is just an illusion, isn’t it?” But Henrik slowly shook his head.

“Ve got to go in, unfortunately. Help me with Jamie at least, zhen you can investigate if you vish.” Henrik muttered, then headed into the house.

Jackie followed suit, seeing Jamie in the floor, frozen almost, staring at Marvin and Tricks. It hurt him to stare at the two Egos, looking like they were stuck in time. Then, Jackie and Henrik went down to their knees to look at Jamie. His eyes looked hazy, no life in them at all, dull, no color. Except the sclera of his eyes, which were red and puffy from what he assumed was tears. When he saw his cheeks, and how they were stained, his guess was correct. His mouth was barely agape now, just slightly hanging below his mustache. He looked soulless, broken, empty. After all, his two only good friends were now gone, he wasn’t as close to Henrik or himself as much as Jackie hated to admit. “Well, what do we do?” Jackie asked quietly.

Henrik huffed and looked at Jackie. “Zhe entire community says you are zhe bringer of PMA, besides Jack of course.”

“But Henrik, you know I have no powers.” Jackie bit his lip. “How am I going to help?”

Henrik gives a little smile, it’s sad, but it’s a smile. “Shine him with zhat positivity, be his new beacon.” Jackie understands and turns to Jamie. He brings up his own smile and hugs Jamie in a warm embrace.

“I know it’s hard Jamie, I fully understand you.” Jackie started. “He was my good friend too, and it hurts to see him gone.” Jackie could feel JJ slightly twitch under him. “It may seem like it’s a hard time right now, but we need you Jamie. Marvin wouldn’t want us this upset about him.” Another twitch. “We’ll get through this together. It may seem so dark now, but we can let the light shine through, I swear.” Suddenly he can feel someone returning the hug, and he smiles. “Welcome back bud.” And the two hug for a bit, and when they separate, Jackie holds his shoulders and surveys him. His eyes have lighten up again and have cleared. He smiles and quickly signs his thanks. “No problem Jamie.”

All of them stand up, and Jackie takes a better look around. “Um, guys, could I investigate this alone please? I think it’ll be better for me, to kinda deal with no distractions, no offense.”

Henrik and Jamie nodded. “None taken, I might leave actually vith Jamie so I can get a better look at his vitals.” Henrik smiles. “Good luck hero.” Henrik says, and the two turn and leave.

As soon as two leave, Jackie looks at the words written in blood in front of the Marvin and his cat. “AM I USEFUL NOW JACKIE?” Jackie could hear him screaming that in his voice. 

“No…” Jackie choked back sobs. “You were always useful Marvin!!!” Jackie screamed and dropped to the ground on all fours, bringing his head down to the ground, his hands balled into fists, his elbows and knees supporting him. He let out a huge wail of sadness and grief. His upper body whipped up and he gripped his arms, sobbing and shuddering, looking at Marvin, tears blurring his vision. “Y-You were always…”

After fully letting out his guilt, Jackie left and closed the door. Suddenly Marvin disappeared, and Mask and Anti reappeared from a hallway that led upstairs. “Good job Mask, your duplification skills are super.” Anti chimed, putting emphasis on the last word.

~~~

Jackie was back at home, looking at a mirror in his room. He was surveying how new gadgets looked on his suit, and he let out a sigh. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to distract himself, all he thought about was Marvin. He closed his eyes in a sigh, and when he looked back up in the mirror his eyes came face to face with Marvin himself, except his eyes were pitch black and a red border surrounded his mask. “Oh God my guilt is driving me mad.” Jackie muttered.

“Why did you yell at me Jackie…” Marvin droned, his voice empty. “I could’ve still been alive…” Tears fell under his mask.

“I-I’m sorry Marvin!!! I would take it back if I could!” Jackie shouted to his mirror.

“Yet I’m dead…” Marvin tilted his head slightly. “We could’ve been happy!”

“I’M SORRY!!!” Jackie screamed, his own tears going down his face now. “I wish I could save you!!!”

“You saved so many others…” Marvin sung. Suddenly the tears vanish and the mirror cracks. Marvin’s hand shoots through one of the openings, and a smile comes across his face. “Why couldn’t you save ME?” And suddenly Marvin jumps through the glass and the mirror shatters.

Jackie yelps in surprise as Marvin pins him down to the ground, and suddenly a flame lights up in his hand, pure green. “Marvin?!?! What’s going on?!” He tried to pull off the mask to cancel Marvin’s magic, but it doesn’t seem to come off. Marvin shoots the flame down onto Jackie’s face, and he screams in pain as it wells up, his cheek boiling under flame. Jackie sends a punch straight to Marvin’s arms to off balance him, which successfully does so. Jackie slides out and proceeds to kick him straight into his side, flipping Marvin onto Jackie’s bed. Bruises well up on Marvin where Jackie had hit him, but he doesn’t seemed phased at all. Marvin summons his cat claws that glow green, and as he’s about to strike, Jackie jumps out of the way and kicks him in the back, sending him straight down to the ground. Jackie pins Marvin to the ground, making he sure he’s unable to move.

“Marvin what’s going on?! Are you…” Jackie starts, but finishes before he says a certain word. “No… Anti didn’t possess you, right?!” But then Jackie hears a familiar giggle behind him, and he whips around seeing Chase, giggling.

“Not quite Red.” Chase laughs, and walks over to him and takes his mask off his face and surveys it. “Huh, how do you keep this on your face?” Chase pulls out a string, his wounds open and bleeding, eyes black with white slits.

“ANTI GIVE MY MASK BACK!” Jackie shouts and goes to reach it, but is suddenly held back by Marvin’s magic. He struggles against it, trying to break out of the green glow surrounding him.

Anti grins. “Now give me a second…” A drip of blood from Anti’s neck drops down onto the string, and then Anti attaches the string to his mask. “Here, I’ll put it on for you!” Anti sings, and stretches the string around his head after pulling his hood down. As soon as it’s on, Anti smiles. “There, perfect!”

“What did you do-“ Jackie states, but then his own head droops and Mask’s magic disappears. The drop of blood turns the entire string red, matching the shade of Mask’s border.

“Hero, it’s time to wake up.” Anti chimes playfully, full of glee for his next take over.

Jackie’s eyes open and his head rolls up, his eyes also pitch black to match Mask, and his head tilts in a playful manner. “Good morning Bro Average.” Jackie sings, and he cracks his knuckles, the burn on his cheek now leaving a terrible scar. Mask walks over and stands next to the new Hero, the bruises on his arms deep purple in color.

Anti giggles and starts walking out of the house. “Come on you two.”

“We got some more work to do.”


	5. Sepia

Henrik cracks his knuckles fidgetly as he buckles himself into his car, Jamie stepping into the passenger’s. As both are ready, Henrik steps on the gas, unknowingly leaving his grieving friend behind him, wailing his remorse to a corpse shown before his eyes, his name stained in blood.

Henrik surveys the stars above him, recognizing how much time had passed. Was it already that late? He pushed the thought away, and turns on a station. It’s an electric swing station, and in the corner of his eye Henrik can see Jamie’s eyes light up in glee. Immediately he starts dancing in his seat to the best of his ability, and any time he recognized an instrument he did his best to mimic it by air playing along. Henrik couldn’t help but smile. “You enjoying yourself Jameson?”

Jamie quickly nods, a big dopey grin spreading across his face. He signed a quick and ecstatic yes, then continuing to dance along to the music. Henrik even found himself tapping along to the music with his spare foot, and just tried to push all the thoughts of death to the side. He couldn’t bare to manage with more than he could at the moment.

After several songs pass, each really good electric bops, Henrik and Jamie step out of the car and step into Henrik’s home. “Hello?” A feminine voice could be heard from down the hall, and suddenly a young woman steps out. Her hair was medium in length, curly, a dark black, with her olive skin toned down in the dark of the night. Her brown and golden flecked eyes shown, and she wore a white v-neck 3/4ths sleeve shirt, with a dark blue denim skirt flaring out to about her knees. She wore no shoes however throughout the house. “Oh, Henrik!” The female smiled and wrapped her arms around the doctor, to which Schneep smiled and hugged her in return.

“Ah, Maria, not in front of ze other…” Henrik commented, nudging his head to Jamie. Maria looked over and saw the fellow Ego, and quickly brushed herself down, and held out her hand to shake JJ’s. “Oh, you must be Mr. Jackson. Maria Schneeplestein, Henrik’s wife. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Jamie quickly shook her hand and smiled. He then quickly signed it was nice to meet you too, but left Maria very confused. “He’s mute Maria. He said it is nice to meet you too.” Henrik says quietly, to which Maria nods in understanding.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’ll try and best to polish up some sign language then.” Maria says with a polite smile. She then turns to Henrik. “Alright, I’m heading out to my parents for a few days, Sal is already there. See you soon hun.” Maria says with a quick kiss, and she quickly throws on some heels and walks out.

Henrik sighs with happiness, then turns to see a smug looking Jamie rising his eyebrows in a teasing way, a cocky smile on his cheeks, arms crossed as he’s slightly bent over by the hips. “Shush you.” Henrik says, then laughs. “Come on, I have a set up downstairs.”

~~~

After Henrik conducts a few tests, he can safely say that Jamie is back to normal. Since, however, that the others have left the house, Henrik asks for Jamie to stay the night just in case something were to pop up. Jamie agrees, and decides to practice a few magic tricks. When he manages to make a deck of cards pop magically into his hands in a poof of smoke, Henrik’s own interest perks.

“Hey Jamie… Could I see some magic tricks?” Henrik asks as he lugs a huge box of equipment across the room. JJ nods in excitement, and waits for Henrik to walk over. He starts with simple things, such as card and coin tricks. But then he starts to incorporate real magic. Things such as making stuff magically appear, such as little dice, pieces of candy, harmless stuff mainly, in tiny poofs of smoke.

“Come on Jameson, impress me!” Henrik teases, and then Jamie smirks and rolls up his sleeves. He then pulls out some matches, and lights them up one by one with little flicking motions with forefinger, plus his thumb. Then he starts changing colors of things by pointing his forefinger in the direction of the object he wants to change. Then with a quick snap of his fingers, everything is back to normal.

Jamie then claps his hands repeatedly, and the objects start to move on their own. The table Jamie was sitting on starts crawling its way across the room. Shelves start coming out on their own, a TV jumps off the wall and starts hopping all over the place. Henrik is stunned. He knew Jamie was good at stage magic, but this was another thing.

“Vow Jameson, vow! Very impressive!” Henrik acknowledges, clapping his own hands. Jamie quickly stands up on the table and bows, then snaps his fingers once again and everything is back to normal. He sits back down on the table and swings his legs childishly, a grin on his face, proud to perform for others.

“It makes me feel useful to perform for others.” Jamie signs, making sure his excitedness didn’t confuse his hands. “I haven’t been able to pull off magic for others on stage like that for what feels like ages.”

“Vell, how long was zhat?” Henrik asks, leaning against a wall close by to Jamie. JJ taps his mustache and wiggles it in thought.

“Last week.” Jamie signs, and it makes both of them laugh, JJ silently of course, at the thought it wasn’t so terribly long ago after all. JJ then takes a moment and notices a big steel and bolted door near the back. “Friend, what is that?” Jamie quickly signs.

Henrik acknowledges the door. “Ah! Zhat is mein safe room. In case someving vere to happen.” He then walks over to it and casually slaps it with an open palm, and it’s thud echoes across the room. “Heavy duty, made to stand veather, fires, magic…” Henrik sighs. “Certain glitches.” Henrik fidgets with his turtleneck at the words, and realized how much he nearly torn it back at Chase’s home. The thought alone nearly brings tears to his eyes, the fact that his one true friend is gone. He then shakes his head, keep that happiness going. He can’t keep dwelling at the thoughts. He tests the door knob, then turns to Jamie. “Hey Jamie, do you have the time?”

Jamie puts a finger up to give him a second, and suddenly Handy rises up from behind the table and gives him his pocket watch. JJ smiles and waves as Handy disappears. He takes a brief look at the little trinket, and then quickly signs, saying it’s 10:45.

Henrik nods. “Ve should probably get to bed, especially you. Let’s head up now, I have guest rooms ready.” As Jamie hops off the table and starts walking to another door that led to the stairwell they took, a loud thud could suddenly be heard. Then the door busts down, and there stands Jackie and Marvin, the two of them grinning like wild animals who just found their prey. Their eyes are soulless, black, and they’re covered in injuries. Jamie can hear a brief scream from Henrik before he clicks a button on the top of his pocket watch, and suddenly time freezes.

Jamie watches as Marvin and Jackie suddenly bleed to movement into his time-frozen zone, and his suspicions are confirmed. “Friends, Anti is controlling you, please! He’s the mastermind! You have to snap out of it!” Jamie signs, a plea screaming on his face.

Hero just cracks his neck, his eyes briefly flashing white, and then chases after Jamie. After trying to throw a fierce punch to his face, Jamie simply catches it and throws him back. Out of JJ’s eyesight, Anti hides in the shadows of the room, adjusting Chase’s corrupted hat. As Jamie throws him back, Anti’s curiosity peaks as he sees Jamie’s potential in power, and a smile grows across his face.

Hero lands back on his feet, using a single hand to help stable himself, his burn on his cheek growing to stretch across his nose and upper lip. 

As Hero stands back up, Jamie pulls down his collar and grins. He stuffs his pocket watch into a pocket and with his finger, traces it across to reveal a red welling scar, matching Anti’s. Handy appears once again and hands Jamie a knife, and as he looks down into sharp object, the world bleeds to sepia, colors of cyan, pink, green, and blue glitching, struggling to come back to life. Jamie then points the knife to Hero as a wicked smile crosses his face, one of borderline insanity, and his eyes and hair start to burn teal, breaking through the now brown and black colors of the world. The only other colors that shown out despite the sepia tones were Hero’s suit, Marvin’s shirt, and blood. His hands don’t need to sign it alone for his line of logic. It was time to fight fire with fire.

Jamie poofed in a slight flick of movement into disappearance, and reappeared right next to Hero and slashed his knife straight across his red suit, nicking the skin, running back to go on the defensive. Hero growled as he acknowledged his wound, and as a look of anger gripped his face, he simply let the blood drip and hunted down after Jamie. He quickly leapt over some of the objects strewn across the room and landed a straight punch to his side, knocking the mute man over.

As Jamie collided to the ground he quickly was met with a blast of magic from the opposing side, coming from Mask who simply held his hand out. Jamie’s suit now has a big open patch, his skin viable to wounds. He debated rewinding time to bring it back together, but he’d have to unfreeze it in order to do so. Not willing to take that risk, JJ simply ignored the open skin on his abdomen and flicked out again. He reappeared once more next to Hero again and sliced a deeper wound into Hero’s chest, making a big X mark. This time Hero let out a slight sound of pain, and Jamie smiled as he looks at Hero. The fact alone he made a noise was saying something, he was able to be broken through with pain! Jamie came in with another slice, but was met with a fist to his right eye. Jamie staggered back and touched his skin around it. It was tender and welling up, surely forming a black eye.

Jamie grimaced and then charged back up again, sent one more slice straight from Jamie’s inner elbow to his wrist, and Hero cried out, his eyes flickering. But with a quick snap from somewhere far away, Hero was back to his brainwashed self, letting the wound be nothing more than an inconvenience. Jamie took the time to quickly find Marvin, and when he found that he wasn’t in his spot, Jamie panicked. Jamie then got a punch straight to the back of his neck, and let out a silent scream as he fell down. He poofed back up in a quick flicker and his eyes burned teal as he summoned a quick flame of magic and sent it to Hero, landing right back on his face. Hero barely let out a whimper as the burn revealed to mark his forehead, the only skin left untouched was his left cheek.

Jamie poofed away in a flicker and returned to the table he was once sitting at, only to find Mask about to attack a frozen Henrik. Jamie went to scream no, but of course his voice wouldn’t allow him. Mask simply acknowledged Jamie by grinning wickedly at him. Suddenly someone had Jamie’s neck in their hands, and Jamie was forcefully turned around to face Hero, who repositioned his grasp to make sure the mute man didn’t dare try moving. Then in the darkness a giggle could be heard, and Anti stepped out to get a look at Jamie. He was in full color, and he quickly tapped his other two creations to bring them to full life as well. As he came back around to face JJ, he grinned.

“Well, well, well… Hello old puppet, how are we today? Probably not so good, huh?” Anti cooed and then jerked his head toward Hero. Hero’s eyes flashed white once again and he held down Jamie’s wrists down on the table, his palms open. Anti took the knife that had now dropped out of JJ’s hands and with the tip, reopened the wound. “That’s for beating up my wonderful Hero.”

Anti then formed his own knife and started playing with the two sharp objects. He then looked at Henrik, then smiled. “You must really care about him, don’t you?” Jamie’s eyes bulged open, and he started shaking his head no as if not to harm him. “Well, how about a trade?” Anti teases, then goes deadpan and takes one of the knives and drives it through one of Jamie’s open palms and sticks it deep into the table. Jamie screams silently in pain, tears welling up in his eyes. “How about your life, for his?” And he drives the other knife through the other palm, doing the same notion. “Wouldn’t that be fun?” Jamie starts crying, letting out silent wails of pain. Anti holds up Jamie’s face and takes a drop of blood from his neck and touches his mustache, and lets Jamie shut down, as his mustache turns red.

“Mute, it’s time to wake up.” Anti cooes, and Jamie rises his face. Jamie opens his mouth, and an old timey song comes out of his mouth.

“Good morning Bro Average.” As soon as the words leave Mute’s open mouth, mouthing no syllables, the knives disappear, two huge slits going through his hands, bleeding terribly. Mute grabs the pocket watch in his pocket and clicks on the button, and time unfreezes.

As Henrik’s eyes suddenly see all his possessed friends staring at him, he doesn’t even think and slams the door behind him.


	6. Relive

Henrik starts heaving, his heart increasing with every beat. All his friends are lost, it’s only him. What was he going to do now??? He’s locked in, they’re all waiting outside to get him. 

Henrik takes a deep gulp of air, trying to calm his nerves. He starts hearing thuds from the other side, the others trying to get his way in. He backs off and watches the door slightly move with each sound. But yet, no budge. He quickly fist pumps and turns to a table along the side of the wall. A paper along the top right reads “Anti-depressants.”

“I’m going to save you all, I svear…” Henrik mutters as he starts relooking over his notes. He pulls out test tubes filled with weird looking liquids, blue in color with little bubbles in it, frozen in time. He starts taking out materials, filled with all sorts of chemicals and mixtures, mainly liquids. He takes out a big beaker and starts pouring out some of the liquids, looking at some of his notes during the process. First some of a clear looking liquid that looked still, then an orange one that fizzed. He mixed the two together, then took one of test tubes and added just the tiniest bit of the blue concoction.

Henrik then pulled out a huge cotton wrap and poured some of the mixture onto it, then with no hesitation pulled down his turtleneck to show his old scar and press the wrap against it. As the mixture met his scar, the world seemed to warp with greens and pinks, and Henrik collapsed to the ground, his head pounding, trying to contain the swirling colors, saying it’s just his vision acting up.

Another failure.

As Henrik’s breath and head stabilized, he slowly pulled himself up, and looked at a little mirror on the table. He observed the scar and it welled up, blood rushing to the surface trying to fix whatever problem just happened. It was throbbing, and burning at that too. Henrik hissed through gritted teeth, trying to calm the burning sensation. He quickly crossed something out and jumped again as another thud came from the door.

They were trying to get in. Of course they were! They wanted him. Anti wanted him. Whatever twisted game he wanted to play.

Henrik yelled at nothing as he tried to focus his mind, but he couldn’t seem to stare at one thing. His eyes jumped around, fear glazed in.

Outside, Anti thudded once more time against the door as he tried to glitch in. He growled in frustration and looked at Mask. “You, do you have smoke powers?” He hissed, keeping quiet so Henrik couldn’t hear him. Mask simply nodded, and with a quick wave of his hands he has green smoke dancing around them. “Perfect. Send it in there.” Anti whispered. “We’re gonna make this German suffer.”

With a brief flash of white from Mask’s eyes, he sent the smoke into door’s crevices, which slowly leaked it’s way inside.

Henrik inside didn’t take notice of the smoke as it started to curl around him in the safe room, but when he finally saw he wished he did. Suddenly the room glitched and warped out of reality, and suddenly he was standing over Jack’s body once again, completely under. “No!!! Not again!” Henrik wailed, his surgical mask suddenly back on him, his turtleneck gone. But when he looked at the monitor he was hooked up to and saw his life was draining, Henrik oddly smiled. “Maybe I can save you now…”

Henrik immediately went to work, working his hands on what problems he immediately saw. “You do not look ze best Jack…” Henrik mumbled as he fixed a quick problem with his stomach. Next the renal glands, then the nervous system. “No need to be nervous no more Jack.” Henrik jokingly said, lying his scalpel quickly to the side. Jack quickly coughed, and blood started leaking out of his mouth.

“Vhat vas zhat? Did you splutter, did you get sick?” It is no time for zhat- get zhis out of my face!” Henrik growled as he ripped away his mask.

Henrik pulled over the monitor and started to check, wondering what the problem could be. He looked at a list titled “symptoms” and found shortness of breath and mood swings being the big two. Some part of him was screaming corruption from Anti, but yet his mind refused to listen and he kept going on. He ignored the itch in his left eye and continued, quickly registering for a chest examination.

After quick examinations of his x-ray too, he wasn’t getting much further. Henrik quickly started to panic and kept moving ahead; these weren’t things you wanted to hear in an examination after all.

“No no no, no need to get distracted. I am a very smart doctor!” Henrik announced to himself, ignoring how his voice suddenly sounded deep. “I saved Petah from the brink, I saved my very good friend Chase. Chase, Brody…” Henrik quickly stopped himself, realizing what he was doing. Why was he wasting time talking out loud to no one there? He further pushed on.

When he got positive tests for blood clots, he immediately registered for anticoagulants. “Zhere is only one way to deal with it, and zhat, is SCHNEEPLESTEIN!” Henrik growled to himself as the world went suddenly black for a few seconds, then back again. His vision started to manipulate and suddenly Jack didn’t start looking like himself, it was getting warm, very scary, very nervous. Why was he getting like this? Maybe there was something inside Jack’s brain, maybe inside his.

As Schneep went on to discover more things he knew how to treat, suddenly Jack convulsed again and more blood leaked, and Henrik could suddenly feel the pain. Suddenly the world warped once more and he was in the ER, Jack’s condition becoming fatal. He had to hurry, he was running out of time.

There was something in his brain. There was something in his brain. There was something in his brain. What is in there? He had to get it out. Stress, stress was getting to him. His vision kept glitching, static filling his ears. He has to keep going, he has to save his friend! “I vill not have you die!” Henrik said, his voice going deep once again. Is he sure he heard that correctly? “Your nervous system is breaking down Jack! Tell me vhat to do, tell me vhat to do my friend!” He looked back at the monitor, checking what else he could do scans on. Quickly the screen glitched to read “Systems Failure,” and his mind started to reel. What was going on??? Why can’t he save him?! “Jack, hang in zhere buddy!” But suddenly he was grinning, giggling, cackling evilly as he pulled out more tools to help him. Help him, harm? Help! No, not harming!

He started to wheeze and rub his face, sweat meeting his palms. “Ve need to get inside his head, antidepressants, anti, Anti. We have to depress An-“ He went to go say, then suddenly he could feel cords tangling his neck, strangling him, but when he reached to go pull at them they weren’t there. “Vhat am I doing?” He choked. “Vhat is this?” The room glitched again, and Jack was worse. “I’m trying my best…” Henrik wheezed. “I don’t know if I can save you, I need to try!” His eyes glanced at anticoagulants once more and suddenly his own body was jerking, spazzing around, just saying Anti over and over again. He could feel it in his neck, in his brain, all over, nothing he was doing was helping. Then with no word, Jack died, and the room glitched back to before, his work on his depressants ruined, broken, destroyed.

“N-No!” Henrik yelled. And suddenly everything was black, and he turned his head to see Chase by a door.

“Bro, Henrik, are you okay? You look destroyed dude.” Chase looked so concerned, it tore Henrik apart. Henrik knew his friend was gone, maybe he was too, but that didn’t help him from running over and hugging him. 

“I zhought I lost you.” Henrik choked, and Chase warmly smiled and rubbed circles into his back. Henrik sniffed and looked at him.

“It’s all okay now, how about I help you? Maybe we can go do some things? Maybe the bowling alley again? We never got to finish our game, plus I invited the other bros too.” Chase suggested, and Henrik slowly nodded. 

“O-Okay.” Henrik agreed, and Chase nudged his head to the door, for him to go first. Henrik understood and opened the door, and the illusion ended, looking at a very angry Anti, as well as his puppets. 

Mask quickly grabbed hold of him with his magic, and Hero went to go beat him up but Anti stopped him. “No need, I need him in one piece.” Anti snapped, then turned to Henrik to see him scared and shocked. Anti, without any words, took Henrik’s glasses and examined them.

“V-Vhat are you going to do Anti?” Henrik stammered, trying his best to keep his cool. “Take my body once again?!”

Anti merely glared at him and ran a drop of blood onto the frame of his glasses. “Please German, I know you have Jack. You lied to all your ‘friends,’ saying I had possessed him, caused his coma, but that was all you!”

“But you did cause it, you influenced me!” Henrik shouted, but Anti ignored him.

“You were so upset over his loss, that you locked him away further, out of my sight. I knew I shouldn’t have left you after I finished my work, but you managed to save him just after I went away.” Anti growled. “You’re the bad guy here, you were the host who nearly killed him and then lied to your friends, just hoping you could save his condition, pushing all their worries away about their dear friend.” Anti held the now red-framed glasses delicately in his hand. “So you’re going to tell me where, Jack, is.”

“N-Never.” Henrik spat.

“Yes, you, are.” Anti grit his teeth and shoved the glasses back on him, sealing to his face as Henrik’s head went down.

“Doctor, it’s time to wake up.” Anti growls, losing patience. As Doctor’s head raises and his eyes open to blackness, Anti smirked.

“Doctor, take me to see Jack.”

~~~

Jack shout out of bed, panting, looking around, noticing he was in a bed he didn’t recognize. As memories came back to him, his breath hitched.

“I remember what he did to me.”


	7. Remember (Part 1)

Jack suddenly shakes as he recalls what happened to him before he woke up. Anti… Anti had corrupted him, sliced his throat open. Henrik looked like he was going to save him.

But he didn’t.

He did so much worse.

Henrik looked like he was going nuts staring at his monitor, poking at Jack with tools, saying he’d feel better. But he kept laughing, his voice shifting, a sudden evil grin crossing his face.

Henrik wanted to kill him.

And he almost did.

“Well, obviously.” Jack said aloud as he looked at himself. He surprisingly had no marks of being hurt where Henrik had messed with his various body systems, trying to “cure” him.

Why did Henrik want to kill him? What did Jack ever do to him? Was it the fact that he constantly held the spotlight? Henrik didn’t seem selfish or the murderous type. Except for Petah, but those could be for all different types of reasons. Jack’s head reeled as he tried to think up what could possibly be wrong, and he decided it wouldn’t be well for him to think up reasons.

Jack decided instead to investigate his situation. Stuck in a room he didn’t know was the basis. Well, was he truly stuck at least? Jack hoisted himself out of the bed and looked around. It was a safe modern looking room, the bed a soft brown frame and cozy dark covers. Behind it were small LED lights that looked like it was supposed to cycle through different colors, but it seemed to be stuck on red for now. It seemed there was no other lighting sources in the room, let alone a bedside table or anything. Just the bed and…

The door! Jack strutted over to it and tried testing the knob, but strangely it wouldn’t budge. “Hm, must be locked from the outside.” Jack thought out loud to himself, then went back over to the bed and sat back down, drinking in the sight once more time. It was a small room, the room a nice creamy-white color for the ceiling, walls, and floor. But despite how cozy it felt, it worried Jack even more. How did he even end up here?

~~~

Doctor walked up to the shelf that Jamie had previously used with his magic and tapped onto it. “Zhis is linked to zhe room Jack is being held.” Doctor merely said, his German accent sounding empty.

Anti growled and kicked at the floor with his foot. “Of-fucking-course. It’s always the cliché’s with you.” He then looked back up at Doctor. “Well, open it!!!”

Doctor just stared back at Anti with his empty black eyes before turning to the shelf. He tapped three spines on the books then knocked on the wood in a little pattern, seeming to echo a certain bass-boosted dubstep song. All of a sudden the shelf split into two, and there was a flight of stairs, illuminated by no light. Doctor turned back to Anti and threw his arms out to show him the way.

“What, you think I’m going up there?! Nuh uh, not how this works Doctor.” Anti spat and then turned Doctor towards the stairs. “You’re going up there and greeting our dear friend Jack.”

“That’s an order.”

Doctor’s eyes suddenly flashed white and he proceeded to go up the stairs. He went up relatively quickly for it being dark, as if he had done this many times.

When he reached up to the top he turned right into a small hallway, at the end a door. Henrik trekked his way over and opens up the door, a slight click releasing as it becomes unlocked.

Jack was still sitting on the bed when the door opened to reveal…

“H-HENRIK!!!” Jack yelled and he got off the bed and slowly backed himself toward the wall, his hands up in a slightly protective position. “W-What do you want?! To keep me under again?!” Jack was absolutely scared, he didn’t want to possibly die again.

Doctor’s eyes briefly flashed white again and he sighed. “Ah, Jack, you’re avake… How are you?”

Jack cocked his head slightly, still remaining defensive. “What’s your angle here Schneep? What’re you going to do to me?”

Doctor took a step towards Jack and shrugged. “Nothing vrong… I just want to see if you vere alright. Vaking up from a coma is not easy.”

Jack slowly backed up again, trying to maintain the distance between the two of them. “Well I’m just alright, thank you!” Jack then paused. “No thanks to you! I nearly died because of you!!”

Doctor continues to walk towards Jack and suddenly he stops as he thinks. “Vhat? No Jack, I vas trying to save you!”

Jack finds his back meeting the wall and he can finally start hearing his heartbeat in his ears, slight ringing. He was feeling light headed, he borderline felt sick. This wasn’t the time for a panic attack. “Yeah, sure Henrik!” Jack snapped. “Explain your laughing, your evil grins and just cutting me open to mess with me!

Henrik cocks his head as he steps closer. “Jack, zhat doesn’t seem right. I vas trying to clear you from corruption.”

Jack stares back wide eyed. “C-Corruption?”

~~~

Meanwhile, Anti’s eyes have fully gone dark, gritting his teeth with clenched fists. He’s watching through Doctor’s eyes, trying to tell Doctor what to do, what to say. “Why isn’t he listening to me?!?!”

Anti punches a nearby wall and as he seems to grow angrier, the blood from his neck and arms start to run more, the scars across his eyes burning. “Don’t further hurt yourself more than needed Bro Average.” Mask says, deadpan. “We won’t be able to fully take over with you weak.”

Anti snaps as he shoots Mask a death glare, his white slits returning. “Easy for you to say, you’re not the one who’s all wracked up with cuts and bruises!”

“Maybe not cuts, but definitely the other.” Mask simply replies. He holds up his own arms, covered in bruises by Jackie. Anti looks at them, then over to Hero, whose face is completely burned except for his left cheek, and the big slashes across his chest.

They weren’t fit for a full on takeover if needed.

Anti felt a slight panic fuel him, and he yelled in frustration. “I can’t lose now!!! Not when we’re so close!!!” His eyes go back to the deep darkness they once were.

“Doctor, get to Jack, now, and bring him back to me.”

Anti then dons a wicked smile.

“By any means necessary.”

~~~

Henrik nods. “Did you forget?” Henrik starts to get really close and say one more thing, but then his eyes flash white once more and he smiles.

“Or are you just too afraid to remember?”

Henrik reaches an arm out to Jack’s throat but Jack quickly catches his wrist, keeping Henrik’s palm open. He then takes a quick glance to look at him closely. Jack can only see the possible good in him, his eyes clear, just him trying to strangle him, but why?

Why can’t he see the bad?!

So Jack does the only thing he can.

Jack holds Henrik’s open palm against Jack’s chest, right above his heart. Jack’s eyes light up a faint blue, and the LED lights behind the bed start to flicker. He lets Henrik’s palm feel his pulse beat, probably way too quickly.

“See?!?! You can’t kill me ever again Henrik! Not as long as I’m beating!” Jack spits, and with a spark the LED lights go out. Then without warning, a ring of pastel blues, greens, and reds shoot out from Jack as his eyes light up with a bright blue. Suddenly he’s able to see what went wrong.

Henrik seeing Jack’s body from the possession encounter. Him trying to save Jack. Him falling to Anti’s possession. Him killing Jack. Him regaining control to save Jack just in time. Him keeping Jack in the room. Him lying to the others about his condition.

Him with Chase. Him witnessing Chase’s death. Him seeing his brothers fight. Him yelling at Jackie. Him seeing Marvin’s corpse. Him seeing Jackie and Marvin busting in. Him seeing them all snap to seeing Anti, Marvin, Jackie, and Jamie. Him getting stuck in the safe room. Him reliving the operation. Him seeing Chase safe after all. Him seeing it was a lie.

Henrik stumbled away, and looked up at Jack from slightly bent legs, his hands on his knees. His eyes were fully clear, except for a thin scene of static covering them. He was panting, wincing, feeling Anti’s control gripping him back.

Jack brought his hands up to his mouth, his eyes still slightly lit up. “H-Henrik…”

“Jack! It’s all zhe glitch! It’s all-“


	8. Remember (Part 2)

Henrik releases another screech of pain, feeling the shadows gripping him back, the red rims on his glasses burning. The cord is back at his throat, tendrils are entangling his legs, arms, body. Glitches seemed to surround him, pulling him in. His eyes darkened, the static covering his eyes going darker.

“No Henrik!!! Stay positive!!!” Jack shouted, still afraid to approach what he thought was his murderer.

“E-Easy for you to say!!!” Henrik spat, and screeched again. He nearly buckled over till Jack finally burst from his fear and caught him.

“Then let me help you!” Jack urged, and he puts his hand above Henrik’s heart, the other supporting the German’s body. Jack’s eyes glowed blue and he smiled in a comforting like tone.

“You are an amazing doctor Henrik. You have an amazing wife and child who love you. You save lives with your true license. Many love you for your charm and sarcastic nature, and how you try to watch out for us. Without you, we’d be falling apart.”

Henrik’s heart beat felt like it seemed to stop in that very moment, then all of a sudden it lit back up with hope. The shadows disappeared and the static and glitches vanished, replaced with tears. Henrik then gripped Jack in a sob, and shook as his wails of grief and sadness from the past couple of days let out in him. Wait, was it hours? He couldn’t keep track.

Jack rubbed his back, putting all of the things he thought Henrik had done behind him. It wasn’t him after all.

It was Anti.

And he needed to be stopped.

Jack let Henrik get most of it out then he raised Henrik up. “Hey Hen… I know it’s a bit of an issue right now with this past grief, but we kind of need to deal with Anti. You got any ideas?”

Henrik sniffles and adjusted his glasses after wiping his remaining tears. “Vell…” Henrik looks at himself. “I zhink you are zhe key, Jack.”

Jack looks at his hands, which glow a very faint blue. “Right.” He then looks back at Schneep. “Well, what are we waiting for?! Let’s go beat Anti!” Jack is about to run down when Henrik grabs a hold of Jack’s shirt.

“Jack… Zhe glitch has zhe ozhers…”

Jack stopped. He thought over one more time then grabbed Henrik’s hand. “Then let’s just hope.” And the two ran down the stairs and found Anti hiding in the shadows, with Jackie and Marvin fighting Jamie.

“Jamie regained control…” Henrik whispered quietly. Then Henrik put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m going to distract zhe ozhers… Go take down zhe source.” And with that, Henrik ran out to aid Jamie.

~~~

Anti was facing Chase in his mindscape. The sudden ring of positivity that shot down the stairs and hit them all awoken Jamie, and hit Chase to give him hope.

“This is my body! And these are my friends!!! Why are you doing this to me?! To them?!” Chase yelled, his hands near his gun. “You don’t deserve this!!!”

Anti glitched a knife into his hands. “Isn’t it obvious Depressed? I deserve the spotlight!!! Jack pushes us all down, takes it all for himself. Yet everyone demands US!!! So why won’t he give it to us?!” Anti’s eyes turn green. “I can bring us all out with control!!! I am the one who can do that!” Anti then launched forward, aiming the knife for his throat.

“S̸ò̶́ ̡le̕t̀ ̸m͜e̶͞ ḑǫ͡͞ ̀͏͠t͢h̸̡a̢̛t!̢!̢!̷̨͟”

Chase quickly dodged and shot a bullet right through Anti’s heart. Anti stared at the wound and dropped to his knees, and holding his hands right above the hole. He looked up at Chase, blood dripping down from under his hand, and his eyes darkened to blackness as he died.

Chase stares back and a smile breaks through his face. “I did it… I did it!!!” 

“You’re a killer.”

“Murderer.”

“What would your kids think about this?”

Chase whipped his head around. “Who’s there?”

“Pathetic.”

“Useless.”

“You’re becoming just like him.”

Chase stared down at the lifeless Anti, his heart rate increasing. He wasn’t letting out a breath. What was going on?!

“Just.”

“Like.”

“Me.”

Anti disappeared and reappeared right next to Chase, and ripped his knife right through his Chase’s throat, making a deeper cut of the signature scar. Before Chase could cover the wound, Anti glitched in and took control.

Full control. No more Chase to interrupt his thoughts any longer.

~~~

Jack watched as Chase’s body fully glitched and spammed, laughing maniacally as the hat fell off his head, the stars on the shirt vanishing. He seemed to levitate with the new power of a full host to take over. The blood gushed from his throat, and a new wound seemed to form right above his heart, if glitches even had one. Once he settled back down, he continued to watch, muttering commands, seeing Marvin’s and Jackie’s eyes light up.

He knew these weren’t the friends of his, but his hope for the better prevented him. All he saw was the boys he knew fighting each other, determination burning in their eyes.

Why was his positivity a blessing and a curse?

What could he do? Obviously his hope, but what could he tell Anti?! He had fully taken over Chase, there was no him left, at least to Jack at least, as he looked at the fallen hat, it’s original color coming back.

Jack watched as Jamie received a kick from Jackie to his side, making him fly to the side.

Jack watched as Henrik nearly dodged a magic ball of energy from Marvin, as he received another from behind.

Jack watched as Anti muttered and grinned to himself, laughing ever so snickerly under his breath.

Jack watched as he saw himself step out to Anti. “It’s me you want, right?”

Anti went wide eyed as he saw Jack casually walk up to him, his attention focused on him. “W-What? You’re giving yourself up that easily?!”

Jack sighed and looked at his toes. “What can I do? I obviously can’t fight you back.” He then looks back up at Anti. “But I hope…” Jack sighs.

“I hope that if I sacrifice myself to you, you’ll leave my friends alone.”

Anti stared, then a grin glared on his face as he saw Jack’s scar. “Please, I’ll make that so much worse.”

Anti then seemed to rip himself out of Chase’s body, Anti’s body glitching and twisting out of control. He gripped Jack’s neck cut it open with a quick scratch. It looked almost like Anti, the truly real one, was coming out of Chase’s body, his form almost holographic, twitching and spazzing, noncorporeal. Chase’s body was just drooping the best it could, almost seeming to barely stand up from a hook or someone holding his shirt.

Jack wanted to scream, wanted to move, something, anything.

Anti’s eyes then went green. “Mask, wipe everyone’s memories. It’s time to start over.”

Henrik just managed to hear Anti say this. He looked over at Mask, who was charging up two white balls of magic, his eyes completely dark, deadpan. His friend was too far gone, he had never experienced possession like him and Jamie. It’s probably why they didn’t wake up like them.

Hero gripped Jamie and held him up by his collar, hanging like a poor kitten being held by the scruff. Marvin looked as if he was going to collide the two balls of magic together to cause an explosion.

“JAMIE! Take us back to ze beginning!!!” Henrik shouted.

“Mask, NOW!” Anti ordered one last time as he took full possession of Jack, leaving Chase behind, and releasing control of the others.

As Jamie activated his pocket watch and the newly released Marvin brought the magic together too late, everything went white.


	9. Epilogue

Chase woke up to the sound of an alarm clock blaring very rudely in his ear. Did people still use alarm clocks? He shook the thought away and sat up right, and the first sight he saw was his arms. “W-What the heck?!” Chase yelped and nearly fell out of his bed.

When did he cut himself?!

Chase stared at his arms in total confusion and fear. He glanced down at his hat which he found on the ground, and wondered how it got down there. He picked it up and looked it over, trying to jog his memory. Why can’t he remember anything from last night?

Chase, with a weird determination, decided to do his best to hide what had somehow happened to him. He switched out his shirt for a black graphic design shirt with small starts, and then a hoodie as well: a royal blue J!NX Game Over zip hoodie, a gift from the same company his hat came from for promoting their clothing line. He disposed of his original dark gray shirt into a corner and changed his black-ripped pants into another of the same pair, except this one had some accidental bleach marks.

He looked at the hoodie and knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He headed to the bathroom and then when he saw himself in the mirror he screamed.

There was a big 4-clawed scratch over his eyes.

Chase prodded the scratch gently, then found it felt like a scar, nothing too serious, just super scary looking. He decided to put a few bandaids to cover it up, relatively small so they wouldn’t be too noticeable. He then grabbed the bandages and went to work on his arms with a quick roll up of his sleeves. With quick pace, he was finished and quickly rolled the sleeves back down. He then heard his doorbell ring.

“Coming!” shouted Chase, and quickly dashed for the door, passing the bar which was clear of any bottles or even food. He opened the door and the good doctor was standing there.

“Henrik!” Chase exclaimed, sort of delighted to see him actually, him being the only normal thing of this entire morning. “What are you doing here?”

Henrik cocked his head in confusion. “I’ve come to pick you up. Remember? Vee planned to hang out vith zhe ozhers today.” He straightens his lab coat and adjusts his slightly torn turtleneck, something he started wearing after the incident with Anti. “I figured it might be best if you vere drinking last night.” He quickly sniffs. “Vow, nevermind Chase! You’re clean, haha.” Henrik then seemed to shuffle his feet, he looked on edge.

Chase chuckles lightly. “Haha, yeah.” He closes the door behind him. “Um, you want to head over?”

Henrik nods. “Yes, ve shall.” The two headed into the car and sat down.

The entire car ride was silent.

~~~

As Chase and Henrik got up to the aisle where Jamie, Jackie, and Marvin were, the two gasped at them. Jackie’s face was entirely burned except for his left cheek, Marvin was holding his arms oddly close to himself, and Jamie had a black right eye and bandages wrapping the palms of his hands. “Vhat happened to you guys?!” Henrik said as he ran over to the others.

“I dunno!” Jackie said as he lightly touched his face. “It thankfully doesn’t hurt too much but I just randomly woke up with it.”

Henrik stares. “Vere you fighting someone with flame powers?” Jackie shook his head. Henrik then ran over to Jamie to look at his black eye. “Can you remember?” Jamie signed no the best he could. Henrik took a dash over to Marvin and held out his arms against his consent and saw the bruises.

“I seriously cannot remember at all Schneep. The best ideas I could think of is Tricks attacking me in my sleep or a side effect of some magic I performed.” Marvin explained.

Chase just watched this all unfold, feeling oddly sick to his stomach. What had happened to them all? And why couldn’t they remember?! Chase then saw Marvin’s eyes light up.

“Guys… It’s Jack!!!” He exclaimed.

They all whipped their heads to see, and sure enough there was Jack, wearing a black hoodie with a little emblem on the chest saying “PMA,” with words saying “Positive Mental Attitude” down the sleeves. Jack waved to the others. “Hey guys!”

Henrik stammered. “B-B-But… How?!”

Jack shrugged. “I just woke up in a hospital somewhere, I assume where you put me after the surgery didn’t work Henrik. You did, didn’t you?”

“... Y-Yeah, I did.” Henrik mumbled. “At least you are better now.”

Jack tapped the little emblem. “Positive mental attitude, am I right?” And like that, the worries of the others and their states seem to vanish. Maybe it was just some weird coincidence after all. “Well, can I join you guys?”

Chase nodded. “Sure bro! Just gotta check in with the desk to get your name added.”

“Will do!” Jack said, and he turned back around to and started to walk to the desk.

On his way there, he grinned and his eyes flashed green.

 

 

 

To Be Continued

in

Scars


	10. Acknowledgments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you’s and reactions to C&B before I posted it here to AO3, as well as a brief summary of C&B and how I wrote it. This is a bonus for those of you all who care about the story, and once again, thank you all. :)

So I’m going to try and make this short, but I just wanted to thank all of you all who have supported Cuts and Bruises (or how I’ll be referencing it to throughout the rest of this, C&B). It truly means the world to me, so this is a bonus chapter for you all.

I had the idea of C&B in July if I remember correctly, I had to delete the original document I wrote it on unfortunately so I can’t recall when I truly started it. It was originally only the first part, but after some talk with one of best friends Huffledork I realized I can expand it one more chapter. However, halfway through I realized I could go even longer, and that’s what I did, and thus this is the result of that thought process. I tried to update every Wednesday for some of my online friends to read (which I actually managed to do up until the chapter “Relive,” I took a two week break after “Sepia” due to some conflicts in my life, and from there on I pretty much updated every other week). I finished it on September 18th, and everyone I had shared it with had loved it by that point, some even stating it was their favorite. Which to me, was mind boggling, because this was my first Ego fic ever: I had only written about my OCs by this point.

I don’t have a real good segway into the reactions section, but just real quick I want to thank the online friends of mine real quick who read and loved C&B to the end.

So thank you Huffle, Juri, Evy, Ghostie, Mari, Pluto, Vanessa, Cymbal, Rogue, Storm, Lythari, and the rest of my friends as a whole: I truly love you all and thank you so much for giving me the reactions I needed for the story and being the first ones to read it.

Now to start off, I want to thank my one friend Huffle again SO much. After C&B fully ended she actually went the lengths to make a cover for it, which took two of her streaming days. Huffle if you’re reading this, thank you so so so so so much, you mean the world to me and I couldn’t be more happy than to have met you in my life. I love you so much.   
Link to Huffle’s Cover Art - http://huffle-dork.tumblr.com/post/178333877562/hey-guys-wanna-read-an-awesome-fanfiction-read 

Now for the rest of the reactions to C&B that I truly love (all of these will be tumblr posts, however I will be keeping the usernames anonymous!)

 

#DO IT! #ITS SO GOOD!! #I LOVE IT SO MUUUUUUUCH!! #Props to Tefa for the great fic :3 #Also #Props to Huffle for drawing this great masterpiece :3 #Both you and Tefa are the greatest artists ive ever met #along with the Discord group :3

#THIS IS SO GOOD #The stream was so much fun too omg #great job!! #this fanfic is gonna be the death of me i stg #fanfic #gore #blood #creepy

#This is so good!! #this looks interesting... #ill give it a read later #read later

#its so good #love this art #love the fic this came from #go read it its worth it #seriously it’s way better than my stuff #go and enjoy

#GO!!!! READ!!!! C&B!!!!

#good s***

#oof #all that blood! #youch! #i love chases expression #very good art #art #jse egos

#dis is that good fic s*** #*insert pic of that meme of sprinkling something but its me sprinkling love on CandB

NO  
#this looks rlly good but also like a pileof p a i n #literally and figuratively

#woah!!! #jacksepticeye #septic boys #cool art

OP. Love the artwork but f***en h***..... W H Y

#jacksepticeye #glitchb**** #appleaday #dadbro #skyhigh #themarviscent #sepiaspeech #it looks so f***ing good eeeeeee

I just read it, and it’s fantastic!

Guys. This story is so fricken good. I love it to bits.  
#I CRIED THO #LIKE 5 OR MORE TIMES #THIS IS A MUST READ

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO  
#youtube #jacksepticeye #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #dr schneeplestein #chase brody #jameson jackson #dapper jack #corruption #possession #oh no

This hurt my heart

Aweeesome

I’m a HUGE fan of this omg

Whoaaaaaaaaaa I’ve got the chills! So good 

TeFA wrote a fic?! H*** yeah I’ll check it out  
#save #gotta read this later

#VERY NICE O.O #writing #what a good way to spend my morning #art

#art #fanfic #jacksepticeye #dr schneeplestein #antisepticeye #chase brody #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #jackieboy man #cuts and bruises #omg this artwork looks cool #interesting

Y E S

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THERE IT IS #CNB IS SO F***ING GOOD OKAY BLEASE READ!!!!!!! #i lOVE #*points at chase* thats my boy!!!! my evil evil little depression boy. #o love him but also want to fight him #i mean fight anti #but you know what I mesn #TEFAAAA I LOVE U AND UR FICS #THEY’RE ALWAYS SO GOOD #<3 #friend art #cuts&bruises #jse

#cool art #jacksepticeye #jse egos #blood tw #oh my goodness the poses and lighting and details are so amazing

I LOVE THIS!!!!

Its amazing!

Holy smokes!  
#this is freaking awesome!! #cool art #blood tw

#jsegos #fanfic #read later

 

And that is all! Thank you guys so much for all the support and love, and I hope to see you all soon in Scars! - The Friendly Anon/TeFA


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